The nation continued to debate the jury verdict and the details of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case and what it says about race relations in America this week.

President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks during the daily news briefing at the White House, Friday, July 19, 2013, in Washington, about the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.AP FILE PHOTO

Perhaps the worst thing about the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin
tragedy is that neither party fit the demonic role assigned to them by
their critics.

Martin was not a hardened criminal, as some on
the right suggested. While he was certainly no Eagle Scout, he was far
from the worst teen around.

And Zimmerman is not the racist
vigilante many on the left and in the media painted him to be. He was
simply a citizen, like so many others, who was tired of crime and
determined to protect his neighborhood.

Martin had the
misfortune of dressing in a manner that drew Zimmerman’s suspicion on
the day of the shooting. Then the kid made the terrible mistake of
responding to Zimmerman with aggression, which made self-defense
necessary for the older man.

Conditions were ripe for a senseless tragedy, and one occurred. But at least the jury made the proper decision.

Attorney General Eric Holder should let this thing go instead of
continuing to investigate Zimmerman for possible civil rights violations
or attacking the legal concept of self-defense. He’s just fanning the
flames of an angry situation that can’t be salvaged in any just or
decent manner.

Here's a sampling of what MLive and Muskegon Chronicle readers thought:

My
thought on this is more "Media should not prolong nation's agony by
trying to find a way to report on Justice Department's every possible
thought on punising George Zimmerman" if you don't want it drawn-out.
We are only still talking about this after the verdict because it is
still in the news.

I've
been thinking about this tragedy, and I think there's probably a lesson
that we all can take away from it. If you're outdoors with a cell
phone, and you see somebody who bothers you (whether you suspect the
"bothering party" is out skulking behind your neighbors' houses &
perhaps casing them for burglaries or vandalism, or whether you think
the "bothering party" is following you and/or hassling you for no good
reason or perhaps for some bigotry-based reason), then call the cops and
report your suspicions, and get yourself a safe distance away from the
"bothering party." Martin didn't do that. Zimmerman didn't do that.
Nobody decided to avoid this confrontation; either party could have, and
both should have. I think Florida's "stand your ground" law's
unnecessary, and I think the many protesters who believe/fear that its
passage was motivated largely by old-fashioned bigotry are probably
correct. We know which voters this thing was intended to placate, and
that's troublesome. That said, I also have a really hard time buying
into the notion that everyone's just supposed to cower in fear of
hooligans (of whatever stripe) so that we can't be accused of somehow
"provoking" them by supposedly saying the wrong thing. In sum, I think
instead of picking a "side," warping (or cherrypicking) what we know
about the true facts, and yabbering off at each other with half-baked
defenses of one "side" or the other, we'd all do better to really give
serious thought to where both "sides" are coming from, and what they're
trying to communicate.

I
feel sorry for what happened. But why isn't all this fuss happening
about all the shootings going on in the heights? Just about a week ago
there was a mother shot in the head trying to protect her lil one.
Where is all this press for her, or any others that are getting shot?
This George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case is done and over. A verdict
has been handed out. Let it rest. Learn from the mistake and move on